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The Beast Below (TV story)
The Beast Below 'is the second episode of the fifth series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat, directed by Andrew Gunn and featured Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. Overview To be added Synopsis Taking Amy for her first trip into space, the Doctor lands aboard ''Starship UK'', a giant metal spaceship harbouring the entire population of Great Britain. While the Doctor explores and investigates the mystery behind the apparent absence of engines in the ship, Amy is drawn towards the mechanical creatures with different expressions sat in booths all around the ship, before finding herself learning utterly horrible truths about the human race in the future and the nature behind what makes the ship fly, a truth which would bring the Doctor to a confrontation with his conscience... Plot Aboard Starship UK, a giant metallic spaceship harbouring the entire population of the United Kingdom following the destruction of Earth, a class of students are dismissed by their robotic judicator. One boy, Timmy, does not achieve sufficient grades to be allowed to use the lift home and thus has to walk. Nevertheless, after his friend Mandy and his other classmates leave, Timmy gets into the lift by himself and, to his terror, it drops all the way to the bottom of the craft before the floor opens up beneath him and he falls into the pit beneath him as the Smiler turns to reveal a terrifying, teeth-bearing angry face. Out in space, Amy floats outside the TARDIS exterior held by her ankle by the Doctor, who had chucked her through the doors to prove they are really in space. He pulls her back inside when they notice Starship UK floating beneath them. While they observe Mandy aboard the ship crying on the scanner, the Doctor lands aboard and goes to talk to her but she runs off. Amy follows him out and he insists that there is something wrong aboard the ship, regardless of nothing seeming out of place, and he does a strange demonstration of placing a glass of water on the floor and noting the fact that it's completely still. They see Mandy at the bench and they go to speak to her again, unaware that they are being followed by a black-cloaked man with a key around his neck. He makes a report to Hawthorne who then reports the Doctor's presence to an unseen figure with various glasses of liquid strewn across the floor. The Doctor and Amy watch Mandy, with the Doctor suspecting that nobody's stopping to help because they know what's upsetting her and they're all afraid of it. When Mandy runs off again, the Doctor sends Amy off after her while he goes off to investigate something of his own. He also instructs her to ask Mandy why everybody is afraid of the robots in the booths. She finds her outside a tented section of road with a hole in it which Mandy insists they aren't supposed to talk about. Using a hairpin, Amy picks the lock and sneaks inside with a torch, finding in it a giant, scorpion-like appendage emerging from the hole that stikes at her. On her exit from the tent, she finds herself surrounded by four cloaked men and gassed into unconsciousness. Elsewhere, the Doctor heads down to the engine room and meets the masked figure who noticed the same feature with the water that he had; it's complete stillness suggesting no engine vibration. The Doctor also finds that all the power connections and walls are facsimiles too, indicating that there isn't an engine at all and yet the ship is still flying. Amy wakes up in a voting booth where she is shown a series of footage that horrifies her; the computer then offers her the choice of two buttons: Forget or Protest. Subconsciously, the slams the Forget button and the information is erased from her mind as a video recording she made prior to pressing the button is played instructing her to get the Doctor to stop investigating and get him away from the ship. The Doctor finds her in the booth, courtesy of Mandy and examines it. Since Amy had forgotten all she'd learned, the Doctor slams the Protest button, the booth seals and the floor opens beneath them, sending them, via an air chute, into a waste dump at the bottom. Examining the floor, the Doctor deduces that they aren't in a cave as it isn't a floor - it's a giant creature's tongue. With the mouth closed, the creature begins to swallow, but the Doctor triggers it's gag reflex and it throws them up into an overflow pipe with the only way out being a door triggered by a Forget button. The Doctor refuses to press the button and the two Smilers in the booths behind them open up; they are promptly saved by the mysterious woman who takes them both down. On the way, she explains the Doctor's past with her family's ancestors; Henry XI, Elizabeth II, Victoria and the "Virgin Queen" making her Elizabeth X. Liz takes them to find more of the appendages, which the Doctor reasons are part of the creature below, that have been rooting throughout the ship. Liz is furious that somebody's been feeding her subjects to it but the Doctor looks mournfully at them. They convene in Liz's quarters where she explains that in her ten years on the throne she's suspected secrets being kept from her and thus went undercover with her mask to find out what. The cloaked men enter the chamber and reveal themselves to be half-Smiler, insisting that Liz accompany them to the tower on the 'highest authority'. They arrive at the tower where Hawthorne awaits them; in the tower, the Doctor is horrified and disgusted to find the exposed pain center of the creature's brain being persistently shocked with electricity, explaining to Liz that the creature is not infesting them, it's serving as their engine, being tortured to keep it going. He releases one of the tendrils and allows the humans to hear it's screams of agony. Liz orders the creature released, but Hawthorne plays her a message that she'd recorded prior to forgetting it with buttons reading Forget and Abdicate, revealing that the creature, the Star Whale, came to Earth during it's destruction, was captured and made to serve as Starship UK's engine. She goes on to reveal that they can continue it's agony and the Starship will remain functioning or they can release it and the ship will disintegrate, taking the lives of everyone aboard. Amy is shocked that she voted in favour of it's torment and the Doctor is angry about her doing it on his behalf to keep him from investigating and tells her that once he's finished he's returning her home. He starts working on increasing the electric pulse to fry the Star Whale's nerve centers, allowing the ship to survive and the Whale's suffering to end, but effectively killing it. While he works, Timmy comes in with a group of other children and the tendril emerging from the grate in the tower is gentle with them. Amy suddenly realises why the creature wouldn't harm the children and has Liz press the Abdicate button, to the Doctor's horror. However, instead of breaking up, the systems in the tower shut down and the Whale remains where it is. Amy explains that the Star Whale volunteered to take the people of the UK with it when it saw their children crying; the torture and trapping was unnecessary as it simply wanted to protect the young, citing obvious parallels to the Doctor when describing how, as the last of it's kind, it chose to protect crying children. Later on, Liz ensures that there are no more secrets on the ship and the Doctor thanks Amy for stopping him from killing the Whale. On return to the TARDIS, Amy prepares to tell him about her upcoming wedding back home when a phone rings inside the TARDIS. Answering it, the call is coming from Winston Churchill who asks for his help with a crisis as the shadow of a Dalek looms behind him. The Doctor and Amy depart in the TARDIS while, unbeknownst to them, a light-spewing crack like the one on Amy's bedroom wall glows on the side of the ship's hull... Cast * The Doctor - Matt Smith * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan * Liz 10 - Sophie Okonedo * Hawthorne - Terrence Hardiman * Mandy - Hannah Sharp * Timmy - Alfie Field * Morgan - Christopher Good * Peter - David Ajala * Poem girl - Catrin Richards * Winder - Jonathan Battersby * Voice of Smilers / Winder - Chris Porter * Churchill - Ian McNeice Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Beast Below'' page on '''Doctor Who Website